


adolescents

by soulsofgold



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Stockholm Syndrome, cliche mafia! au, i hate myself for even writing this but, it had to be done
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:48:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28791981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulsofgold/pseuds/soulsofgold
Summary: Kim Jongin, known in the game as "One-Shot Kim", is the head of a massive underground artillery affiliate. Thea "Wild" Song is a new hire on Seoul's private police force with a shadowy past of her own. The vastly separate worlds they live in become one, and the two are forced to make a choice to do what's right, or to do what's expected.(This story has been in my drafts for literally two years and it's time that it gets posted. It's got every cringey, overdone cliche in any story with a criminal!au ever, but idk anyways I hope you enjoy lol)
Relationships: Kim Jongin | Kai/Original Female Character(s), Park Chanyeol/Original Female Character(s)





	1. out of sight, out of mind

The beginning of the end started as soon as I started to get comfortable without him.

“Can you come with me, please?” A man dressed as a security guard with the broadest shoulders I had ever seen loomed over me while I still sat in my seat. I had just arrived at the stadium with Eun-seok; he went to grab a beer while I waited for the game to start, so I was alone. I loved soccer, and this was my day off—it was supposed to be, at least. And _he_ was trying to ruin it.

My first instinct was to punch the guard in the nose and make a run for it, but there was no use in running. _He_ probably had the whole place rigged to explode or something. It sounds dramatic, because it is. _He_ is. I sighed. “Alright.”

“Don’t make a scene,” he muttered to me.

“I won’t,” I replied. “He should’ve told you I’m not one for scenes.”

“He told me you would say that, and that you’re lying,” the guard said, and put his huge hand around my bicep and steered me out of my seat.

We climbed the staircase back up to the main level. Soccer fans were still milling about the concession stands, presumably buying snacks and alcohol for the game that was about to start.

That I would not be attending anymore.

I grumbled under my breath that _of course_ he’d decided to do this on my day off. The guard directed me to a heavy set of metal doors at the end of the corridor, which he pulled open to reveal the cavernous underbelly of the stadium.

We were now walking briskly down the middle of a brightly lit tunnel underneath the stadium. An elevator sat at the end of the tunnel, one we’d presumably be taking to some other place within the walls of this place.

“Did he say why?” I asked as we walked. The guard still had his hand around my bicep, and I squirmed slightly at his touch.

“I don’t know the details. I just know he sent for me to get you to come upstairs to meet him. That’s it,” the guard said, and then added under his breath, “He sure is a handsome motherfucker.”

I pressed my lips into a hard line.

The security guard’s walkie talkie garbled to life, and the low, syrupy voice I knew too well echoed in the hallway. “Do you have her yet?”

Before the guard could grab the walkie talkie, I snatched it from his belt with my free arm and pressed down the button to respond. “What do you think you’re doing?” I hissed into the black plastic.

“We need to talk,” he answered, nonchalantly, as if he were reading me the headline of a newspaper, or reciting today’s weather.

“You could’ve done this literally any other day. I was looking forward to the game,” I practically whined into the black box.

He laughed, but the normal sarcastic tone he usually had was gone. It sobered my feelings of annoyance. The static of the radio rang out against the tunnel’s walls once more. “I have a helicopter waiting on the roof. We don’t really have a lot of time.”

“Why now?” My blood stilled with the brief silence on the other end. “Why, after all of this time?”

“Because we have unfinished business,” Kim Kai said into the other line before the signal cut out and the guard and I stepped into the elevator.

*

I didn’t intend to meet the head of the Kim Artillery operation while in Jeju-do. In fact, I didn’t intend to _meet_ him at all.

I had only been on the private police force for a year before I was taken on as an undercover agent for the Byun case. He was one of Kim’s most trusted associates. This was about as big of a gig as I thought I would ever get, after just being hired and freshly plucked out of the academy. Byun Baekhyun was a particularly wily and reclusive criminal, and had been evading the force for months after a heroin deal that turned into a shootout in Shanghai. The team had finally traced him _all the way_ down here—in paradise, naturally. Byun was known for extravagancies. A wanted international fugitive hiding out in the most well-known island in his home country struck me as odd, but I figured the former white-collar-CEO-turned-Mafia-associate must have thought he was safe here.

Through months of careful monitoring and extensive research, we gathered that Byun had a rather nasty habit of snorting the money he earned from his partnership with Kim Artillery up his nostrils in the form of white powder. By the grace of a higher power and a hell of a lot of time, the team had infiltrated his system with the drugs, and just like that, I was designated as the delivery girl.

Eun-seok, my case partner, drove the comically tiny rental van down to the end of the gravel path, parking underneath a tree with an expansive canopy to give us some cover from the bright summer sun.

“I’ll let you out here. You’ll have to walk a little bit to get to the house, but it’s up there, behind that cliff. I’ll drive around to the other side and notify the team,” he said. “You have everything?”

I lifted up the large men’s striped t-shirt to flash the bulletproof vest and the handgun nestled in the waistband of my jeans. To Byun, I’d look like any normal girl off the street. Minus the bulletproof vest, which he’d probably notice immediately.

“Yep,” I said.

“You got everything?”

“In my backpack,” I answered, and opened the passenger door. “Call for a helicopter if I send the signal. Be safe.”

“I should be saying the same to you. Don’t get shot, Wild,” he smirked when I rolled my eyes at the nickname.

“Call the helicopter anyway. I gotta live up to my name after all.”

Eun-seok’s expression became serious again as he put a hand on my shoulder.

“Remember: dead or alive. If you need to shoot—”

“I got it. I’m ready.”

I slid off the cracked grey leather upholstered seat until I felt the crunch of the gravel beneath my feet. I stepped away from the car, and Eun-seok pulled away, sending a small salute my direction as I shielded my eyes from the hot sun.

The black backpack on my shoulders had inside two bricks of the finest cocaine we could find—Byun wanted only the best for himself and his clients. For a few minutes, I enjoyed my walk to the mansion in near silence, aside from the gentle waves lapping at the shore and the occasional caw of a seagull. But the weight of the backpack began to dig into my shoulders, and thus my thoughts followed. The reality of my situation had sunk its teeth into the back of my neck, and the nagging, sane, painfully human voice in my head began to scream its warning: _what if something goes wrong?_

My white sneakers sunk into the sand as I trudged further up the beach and closer to the cliff face where the side of the enormous house peeked out from behind a wall of vines and rocks. Faint tire tracks in the sand led up to a clearing in the trees, and I followed them up the driveway to the front of the house. The house was made almost entirely of glass and was embedded in the cliff-face. To the left, a waterfall gurgled against the rocks at the base of a stream that disappeared down the cliff, presumably to the second access point where Eun-seok and our team would be waiting to strike once I gave the signal. I spotted two cameras on either side of the doorway, and I lifted the ball cap from my face and gave a big grin to their beady eyes. I didn’t even have to ring the bell; a voice came over the intercom.

“We’ve been expecting you,” The voice was high, flute-like and smooth, not at all like a criminal’s, and it was in English. “Do you speak Korean?”

_We?_

“Yes,” I spoke to the direction of the door, keeping my eyes forward.

“You sure are a pretty one,” the voice spoke again, now in Korean, to itself and not to me, and my stomach coiled in disgust. I stayed silent except for a small sigh, feigning impatience.

The door buzzed, and opened halfway to reveal a willowy, pale and immaculately dressed young man—Byun Baekhyun himself. His rich, blue silk shirt hung gracefully off his thin shoulders and was tucked into his gleaming silver belt buckle.

“What’s your name, angel?” Byun leaned in the doorway, lazily skimming his eyes over my body. The bulletproof vest suddenly felt too tight underneath the oversized shirt. I prayed he was stupid enough that he wouldn’t see.

“Myun-jin,” the pseudonym slid off my tongue easily, “I’m here to drop off—”

“We know,” the pretty boy said. “Come in.” His eyes were beautiful and bloodshot.

I stepped into the home, looking around briefly and taking note of the white marble floors and dark colored walls. All the lights in the home were turned off, but the home’s enormous windows let in enough light to illuminate the whole space. He seemed to be alone, with no men surrounding him, and no one to search me. Definitely pretty stupid for a wanted criminal. Maybe he hadn’t noticed the vest, then. But the voice in the back of my mind was still hung up on the word he’d spoken, now twice:

_We?_

Next to the front room was a doorway that led into a gargantuan living room with vaulted ceilings and an entire wall made of glass that overlooked the private beach. A gently hissing marble fireplace sat in the center of the room, and on its hearth, lay a sleeping, chubby Corgi. What an uncanny dog for such a dangerous person.

“Sit here. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll go get the cash,” Byun waved in the direction of the black suede couch next to the fireplace.

“Wait. Don’t you want to try it first?” I asked.

“Try it first?” he repeated with a quirked eyebrow. His eyes roamed my body.

I ignored his lustful stare and took a vial from my pocket—a free sample of the cocaine.

“For you,” I said. “It’s on me.”

He finally smiled, looking more like the puppy sleeping next to the fire. “If you insist.”

Byun took the vial from my hand, tipped a small amount onto the back of his hand and pressed his nose to the bit of powder. His head tipped back as the cocaine dripped down his esophagus and took effect. A lethargic smile fell across his lips, and his eyes widened slightly.

“Damn. Okay, angel. I’ll be right back.”

I nodded and in an instant, he was gone down the hallway. My eyes darted up to the ceiling, checking the corners for cameras. The home was too quiet, and it gave me the creeps—something was off; I felt like I was being watched, and there was a chill in the air as if a ghost had stepped through the threshold along with me.

Once I deduced that there were no cameras in clear shot of me, I quickly slipped my phone out of my pocket and sent a confirmation text to Eun-seok that I was in and to give me thirty minutes. I readjusted the gun hidden in my waistband. Loaded. _Dead or alive. Dead or alive._ The mantra replayed over in my head in the deafening quiet of the space. Taking down Byun would be the easy part—it was the ‘we’ he mentioned that had me worried that this encounter would be far from routine.

Baekhyun came back into the living room with a large wad of bills in his left hand. He gave the sleeping dog a little pat on the head and looked over at me.

“You sure you don’t want to stay, angel? We have plenty of room here. You could have a little party with us.”

“That’s okay. Boss sent me for another client to attend to in an hour. What’s its name?” I asked. I liked dogs. I did not like Byun Baekhyun.

“MongRyeong,” Byun said. “I’ve had him for a while.”

A silence settled over us and I looked at him expectantly, the money in his hand. Another languid, sleazy smile appeared on his face, and there was something in his eyes that glimmered; the look of a predator. I knew instantly that he knew. My cover had been blown. _Dead or alive. Dead or alive._

My whole body tensed as he sat down on top of the coffee table, across from me. He put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his face inches from mine.

“You really are a pretty one. What are you?” he asked. “Nationality, I mean.”

“Korean and French,” I answered, and it was the truth.

“Sexy,” Byun murmured. “Can you speak French, angel?” The cash dangled from his hand, and he outstretched it towards me.

“No.”

He clicked his tongue. “Shame.”

I scooted the backpack towards him with my foot and took the cash from his hands. _Easy. Too easy._ I sighed, and in one fluid motion, I stood and my gun was drawn, pointing at his forehead. His smile dropped. The dog woke up, barked once disgruntledly, then fell back asleep in an instant.

“Don’t move,” I said calmly. “You have two options: give up or die. And trust me, I _really_ don’t want to shoot you and have all your brains ruin this lovely décor you have.”

Byun Baekhyun chuckled, shaking his head. “I admit, angel. You threw me for a loop for a minute. I thought maybe you were one of us.” He reached into the back of his pants and pulled out his own gun slowly. “But, I’m not going to go quietly.”

I smiled, and ducked.

The first shot hit the wall behind me, and I scrambled across the floor behind the sofa. I fired once and missed, and then rolled underneath the coffee table to get behind Byun. I launched myself at his back and wrapped my arms and legs around him. He crumpled under my weight, and we fell heavily to the floor. The fall knocked the gun out of his hand in the process, and it skittered out of reach under the shoe cabinet.

Baekhyun’s elbow came up to strike me in the face, and my nose made a sickening _crunch_ at the force of bone hitting bone. I gripped his hair tightly and slammed his face into the marble floor, hearing his own nose give way from the impact. I kept him pinned to the ground while I continued to bash his head into the stone. Once, twice. The boy went limp—unconscious. The phone in my back pocket rang, but I ignored it.

I took the handcuffs from my backpack and put them on the bloodied boy. For good measure, I swiftly removed the shoelaces out of a pair of his shoes and tied his ankles. As I stood up to assess the “we” situation, I could feel the blood from my nose dripping down my chin and began steadily soaking the neckline of my shirt. Some dropped down onto my white shoes.

“If there’s anybody else here, come out with your hands up and we won’t have a problem,” I called out. It was deafeningly silent for long enough to question if there was even anyone there at all.

But a sound came after a moment.

“Come upstairs, Thea Song.” The voice sent an icepick of fear straight through my spine. Danger was laced in the few words he spoke, and he knew my name.

With my gun raised, I ascended the stairs to a long white hallway. At the end of the hallway was an open door, and when I reached it, I paused.

“If you shoot, I shoot,” I warned.

“Silly girl. I don’t have a gun. That’s what Baekhyun was there for. Although, he’s proven that he isn’t a very good shot. And now I don’t know why I even hired him in the first place,” the man’s voice said from inside the room. I stepped inside, and audibly gasped at the person seated in the armchair.

*

I stepped out onto the stadium’s roof with the security officer still latched like a leech to my arm. I found it annoying that he’d still insisted on escorting me to the helicopter. I wrenched my arm out of his grip, earning a gasp of surprise as I walked faster.

The head of shiny, jet-black hair was unmistakable in the cockpit, and the smirk was even visible through the slightly tinted windows.

I came to a halt at the open door of the helicopter, and stared at Kim Jongin, whose eyebrows were raised expectantly, waiting for me to get in.

He had a pair of headphones over his ears, and tossed me a pair of my own as I slid into the seat next to him. As soon as I had the headset on, he began to speak.

“How have you been?”

“Pretty good, until recently,” I shot him a glare. “You know I love soccer.”

“Aw, don’t be like that,” Jongin said, his lower lip jutting out in a pout.

“What do you want?” I asked.

The pilot of helicopter made a motion to Jongin, who nodded and the aircraft began to move upwards towards an unknown destination.

“Just the pleasure of your company,” he said.

“Jongin,” I warned.

“What?” Jongin snipped, and a blade of ice cut through; his anger. It was all too familiar to me, that edge to his voice—that voice that every cop and criminal he’d ever met, feared.

“What do you want?” I asked again.

“You know, I had a hard time finding you.”

Jongin had a hand in everything in this city, and when he wanted something, he usually got it. But, he ignored my question.

“I’m tired of this, Jongin,” I said.

Jongin reached out without warning and slid a finger down the bridge of my nose, feeling the tiny, raised bump that still remained, when Baekhyun nearly broke my nose. He’d really done a number on it. He wanted to remind me of our first meeting, before he flipped everything in my life upside down.

“Me too,” he answered.

I stared down from the open door of the helicopter as the blinding lights of Seoul disappeared. We were headed north, for the mountains.

He readjusted the headphones and peered down at me from the seat. The sides of our bodies were flush together in the cramped helicopter seat. He was wearing a black t-shirt, and the exposed skin on his arms felt baby-soft, cooled slightly from the air at these heights.

His eyes had taken on a look I’d only seen in them a handful of times before—a look that showed his true age—twenty-eight—that of a naïve, frightened young man. With my fingertips, I reached up and touched the small scar that sliced through the corner of his bottom lip. A silent promise—and my will was broken again under those innocent eyes.

“I’m finished, Thea.”


	2. them bones

Before Kim Jongin inherited Kim Artillery, the largest illegal gun ring in Asia, and before he became the most infamous and untouchable criminal in all of Korea, he was born a beautiful and tenderly shy little boy.

His parents cared for him with the utmost delicateness, mostly because they _had_ to—he had never broken a bone, and he never fell hard enough to leave any scar on his, smooth, beautiful skin. His nannies never let him out of the house to play on the playgrounds near their home, and instead gave him more creative outlets to release his pent-up energy, such as painting and drawing. He had large, chocolate-colored eyes that had never seen pain or suffering, and they lit up like candles at the smallest of joys.

He had been protected from the harsh reality of his family’s work up until he was about ten years old—much younger than what they intended—nevertheless, the young boy quickly caught on to the immorality of his father’s business and accepted it as a factor of his life. And that’s when the child’s innocence began to die, and Jongin’s heart began to grow cold. His father took over and taught him how to shoot, fight, and kill—whirlwind sessions that would leave the young boy up at night, sweating and crying in terror from the unknown, the inevitable. He never had nightmares about imaginary things; instead his nightmares consisted of his father and the feeling of cold steel pressed between his eyebrows.

After he could walk, he could dance. He would dance up and down the marble floors of the apartment for hours until his breaths were labored, and his legs felt like jelly. Sometimes, he’d dance with no music and kept the consistent rhythm of a metronome in his head. His love for dancing endeared his mother so much that she hired him a private ballet tutor, and although his dream never came to fruition, he never stopped dancing after that. He was impeccable, and everyone knew it. If things had gone his way, Jongin would have been a dancer, but, of course they didn’t.

Three days after his eighteenth birthday, his father was shot dead after a drug raid. And in that single gunshot, dancer-Jongin became leader-of-an-illegal-gun-trafficking-megabusiness-Jongin. With the inheritance of the company, he began sporting a new alias: Kai.

Killing came easily to his father, so naturally, Kai was no exception—once he became the leader, he wasted no time in attempting to avenge his father’s death by becoming just like the monster his father was. His dreams of ballet dancing were thrown out the window, and killing became his new favorite hobby. He was a sharper shooter than dear old dad, and by his nineteenth birthday, he had gotten the nickname “One-Shot Kim”, for reasons that explain themselves.

Kai embodied every bit of what an illegal gun ring boss should on the exterior—his once sparkling and inquisitive eyes had become ruthless and cold, and he was constantly out for blood.

However, on the inside, was the heart of a tortured young kid who had to grow up much too quickly. Nobody would know how he would lie awake in bed at night, a shaking mess, thanking God that he wasn’t dead yet, while silent tears rolled down his cheeks and soaked the pillowcase.

I couldn’t have known that yet. But I would, in due time. For now, an introduction was in order.

The swiveling armchair spun around, just like in the supervillain movies, and Kim Kai was sat across from me, a deadly smirk playing on his lips. My breath froze in my chest. I instinctively raised my gun in front of me. He quirked one of his perfect eyebrows.

“Oh, sweetheart. You wouldn’t shoot me, would you?”

I kept my gun raised. “Convince me you’re unarmed.”

Kai stood from his seat and I cocked the gun. He spun around in a circle slowly with his hands up in the air, showing that he was, in fact, clean of any weapon. “Happy? Now, I think it’s best that you take that gun and throw it out the window.”

“No.”

“You don’t trust me?” Jongin hummed. “Time’s ticking, and I’m not sticking around for much longer. Your boys are coming to pick up Byun and we _really_ need to talk.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.” His tone was so cold, my blood turned to ice. “I know who you are, and I know what you can do for me. So, I want to talk,” he repeated. “Now, throw the gun out the window.” His eyes gleamed like steel. I felt like a trapped animal. 

“No.”

His eyes bored holes into my forehead, and it was as if the temperature in the room plummeted. I was caught in the crosshairs—like a hypnotist, he willed me to open the window and toss the gun out.

“Good girl.”

“Fuck you,” I spat. I backed up into the corner of the room and behind the door, as if that would save me from the psychopath sat across from me.

“Can you _please_ listen for one minute?”

“No.”

Kai sighed and looked out the window. He looked bored. My blood curdled with rage.

“Fine. I didn’t want to have to do this, but,” he turned to me and took out a sleek, black phone from his pocket. “I have the means to destroy your entire battalion. Roughly thirty kilos of high caliber explosives are buried under each police station in Seoul. If I press the call button, every single building will be blown to bits. Would you like to be solely responsible for that kind of unspeakable catastrophe?”

I was silent. He unlocked the phone and waved it, mockingly. I truly had no choice.

“Fine, I’ll listen,” I whispered.

Kai slouched slightly in the chair and crossed his legs. “Great. Here’s what’s going to happen in the next few hours. You’re going to give Baekhyun up to Detective Yun and his pals down the road. When they ask if he was alone, you’re going to tell them _yes, no one else but Byun_. You’re going to go home to your apartment. You’re going to take a nice, long, hot bath, and then you’re going to call the number on MongRyeong’s collar. I know you like dogs, and I figured you’d want to keep him as a trophy.”

“What makes you think you know me so well?” I scoffed.

He began to ramble. “You think _you’re_ the only one that’s been keeping tabs on _me_? You live eight minutes walking distance south of Gimpo Airport, Samsung Apartments, number 609. You prefer reading books to going out for drinks with your vapid and self-centered friends—I don’t really know why you hang out with them. They’re not very nice to you. You’re a _smart girl_. You have three brothers. Well, _had._ One’s dead—your poor mother hasn’t quite recovered yet; tends to drink a lot. Your parents’ home address is—”

“Why do you need to know all this information?” My palms felt itchy; I needed my gun back.

“I don’t, to be honest. I just needed you to listen to me.” He continued, his eyes still staring into mine with an intensity that made me feel as though I was looking into the eyes of a shark. “You’re going to call that number. I’ll come get you. We will continue this conversation. And in the event that you don’t call…well, I don’t want to think about that. Hopefully, you won’t let me down.”

“Where will you go now?” I asked dumbly. In the distance, I heard the sound of chopper blades slicing through the air. _Time’s up_. The hour I had spent in the house felt like seconds.

Kai smiled, a beautiful, deadly smile. “That’s a secret. See you soon, Wild.”

I backed out of the room as Kai turned away toward the window. I ran down the stairs, too terrified to look back.

My captured criminal was still on the floor, but had moved to a sitting position. The shoelaces still remained around his ankles, and his eyes were closed.

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead. Your chariot awaits.” I kicked his feet out from under him and he flopped over like a ragdoll.

His eyes cracked open. “Fuck you, bitch,” Byun spat his own blood onto the floor. “I hope Kim stomps your brains into the pavement. It’s what you deserve.”

“I’m flattered you think of me like that.” I stooped down to look at him in the face, smiled, and with one arm, hauled the bloodied boy to his feet. “I’m keeping your dog, by the way,” I said.

MongRyeong still slept on the mantle as the helicopter sounds grew nearer and nearer. My phone buzzed in my pocket and with my free hand I answered. “Yeah?”

“Come out.”

I dragged Byun out the door first. On the lawn, the helicopter was parked, its blades still powering down. Eun-seok sat in the pilot’s seat and two police vans waited nearby. Byun was shoved into the back of one. As I loaded the helicopter with potential evidence, I looked up at the window of the room where Jongin was. It felt so sickly, so wrong. I pressed my lips into a hard line, and considered my options: get Kim now and destroy the whole police team, or do what he ask in order to save them. I walked back into the house to grab the dog, and took one last hard look at the staircase, before turning around and walking outside.

“Seriously?” Eun-seok said reproachfully when I reemerged with MongRyeong.

“What else were we supposed to do? He’s a dog!” I replied. “By the way, did you see my gun laying around anywhere?”

“We picked it up; it’s in the chopper now. Why was it all the way out here?”

I swallowed the truth. “Couldn’t bring weapons inside. I took Byun down with my bare hands.”

“I can see that. Your nose has looked better.”

“Yeah, it might be broken.” And as I said those words, my nose flared in pain.

Eun-seok ordered the others to do a final search while we chatted, and I tried not to look like I was holding my breath. When they reemerged after a few minutes with no one else, my eyes focused on the window. I could sense that he was gone; they wouldn’t find him no matter how hard they looked. He had already disappeared like an apparition, a mirage. 

I pressed my finger to the lazy dog’s neck, feeling around for the thin black collar underneath his fluffy fur. I clutched MongRyeong close to me as we drove to the airport, as if it were Kim himself I were holding onto. Kai’s words echoed through my head. He knew everything—how _did_ he know everything? We boarded the private plane and I absentmindedly brushed my fingers over the cool metal tag underneath MongRyeong’s fur, trying to read the number with my fingertips, like it was in Braille. MongRyeong didn’t mind my squeezing one bit—he was a dog that was used to spoiling and coddling.

_I am going to die._

Once I arrived home, I gathered my things and went to the bath house. The large, open room was empty, save for two elderly women chatting loudly in the round baths, who ignored my presence. I scrubbed my entire body with the cleansing cloth until I was pricked red and raw, removing all the stains of the past 24 hours and trying to forget what I was doing.

I stared at my naked body in the large, circular mirror obstructed by the steam. My eyes were manic, my cheeks pink from the heat, my hair tied in a stringy, sweaty bun. The bridge of my nose was cleaned of blood—decidedly broken—the dark purple bruising and swelling had begun to bloom under my right eyelid, extending slightly across my cheek. Aside from the black eye, I looked so _normal_ —too normal, for someone to take any real interest in me at all—that it seemed only fitting that Kim would pick me as a target. I took careful time to dry my hair and style it the way I always did, trying to hold on to the last bit of normalcy. Calm before the storm.

_I am going to die._

I walked home from the sauna in a perplexing daze, delirious from the sweltering summer heat, but also dissociating from what would come next. I could feel the air closing in around me, could feel eyes everywhere now, watching me. I wondered if Kim controlled most people in Seoul. I wondered, but I didn’t want to know.

When I got back to the apartment, MongRyeong was still staring listlessly from the couch, in the same place I’d left him an hour ago. It dawned on me that I’d forgotten to buy dog food at the store on the way home, so I cooked him the chicken I was going to save for my dinner and gave it to him out of the pan. I opted instead for a microwavable red bean bun and sat on the floor with him as he ate happily. The apartment was silent, save for his chewing.

I looked at the furry lump.

“Your dad was an asshole. You know that? He broke my nose,” I told MongRyeong. He glanced over at me indifferently before continuing to eat.

I unclipped the collar from around MongRyeong’s neck and held it in my hands, the thin black ribbon with the single, glinting silver pendant in the center of my palm. The mirror-like finish of the pendant showed my face trapped inside it. I recognized the expression of terror reflected back at me. I flipped the pendant over, and found the number engraved. It looked hand-drawn, and I had to squint to read the extremely faint scrawl of numbers etched into the metal.

I pressed the numbers into my phone one at a time, each _beep_ sending my heart to ricochet off my ribcage.

Dial tone. The blood rushed in my ears, and I was so afraid that my stomach heaved, almost emptying its contents onto the floor. I didn’t have time to hang up, because within two seconds, I heard his voice.

The voice that answered was as smooth and slow as honey, and my stomach did another nauseating flip. “Hello, Wild. I’m outside.”

_I am going to die._

I swallowed the vomit threatening to rise. “Outside?” I rasped.

“Are you coming out or shall I come in and get you myself? I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to have a chat.”

“N-now?” I asked dumbly. _I was going to die._

“Yes, _now_ , Thea,” Kai’s voice suddenly changed from the languid pace it’d had before, to something as sharp and as hard as a diamond blade. My blood ran cold.

“Okay, I’m coming. Should I bring the dog?”

“The dog stays. He’s yours now.” _Not for long, because I’m going to die. What’s he going to eat if I don’t come back tonight?_

I looked at MongRyeong, who blinked slowly at me before resting his big head on his paws. “Be good, alright? Don’t eat my stuff,” I said, my voice wavering. “If I don’t come back…I’m sorry.” The dog sighed.

So, I grabbed my things and went.

A black SUV with completely darkened windows idled in the car park. Outside the back-passenger door was a man in a black suit, taller than Kim, with a shock of dyed fire-engine red hair. For looking so tough and stoic, the man’s face was nearly flawless and sort of pudgy, like a puppy’s, and his giant ears stuck straight out from his head like one. He wordlessly signaled for me to stop, and approached me for a pat down. He performed the procedure with robotic-like quality, and then, without taking his eyes off me, reached behind him and opened the passenger side door. The inside of the car lit up, and the outline of a person in the front passenger seat materialized like an ghost in a horror movie.

I slid into the black leather seat, and the door was closed behind me. The man quickly strode to the driver’s side and hopped in.

Kai didn’t turn around as he spoke. “My driver’s name is Chanyeol,” he said, and then angled his head towards the man who was now pulling out of the car park and driving us down the road to an unknown location. I could see the sharp, angular jaw casting shadows against his neck. “Chanyeol, did she introduce herself?”

Chanyeol shook his head. Kai _tsk_ ed. “Where are your manners, Wild?”

“I don’t have any.” My own voice rang in my ears like I had just spoken through a megaphone. The silence in the car afterwards was excruciating.

Kai chuckled, but still kept his head forward. “We’re going to my place. I hope you don’t mind.”

I wasn’t thinking anymore. _I’m going to die_. “Gonna kill me in your own home? That’s pretty bold. How are you going to explain the blood stains to the cleaning ladies?”

Kai turned around then, his eyes glinting sharp with something that resembled annoyance, but looked as metallic and fierce as a blade.

“I told you before—I’m not going to hurt you.”

_It’s a lie,_ my brain screamed.

I swallowed my next comment and stared straight ahead as the car zipped through the heavy traffic. It was dusk, and the bridge was clogged with commuters trying to get home to their families. I thought about trying to escape. I thought about waving for help. But I realized that nothing would save me now—no one could rescue me in time. _I was going to die._

“How was your bath?” Kai asked. From the driver’s seat, the silhouette of Chanyeol quirked an eyebrow. Listening. Curious. _Interesting._

“Fine.” I kept watching Chanyeol. My answer must’ve humored him, because the corners of his lips turned up, and one hand came up to itch the side of his nose. Covering up a laugh. “He’s laughing. What’s funny?” I asked him boldly.

Chanyeol coughed, his eyes still on the road. “Nothing, ma’am.” Kim looked at Chanyeol, and then back at me.

“I think he finds your tone while speaking to me strange,” Kim said.

“Did your boss tell you I’m a cop?” I ignored Kim’s words and leaned forward towards Chanyeol.

“Yes, ma’am,” Chanyeol said. His voice was deep and warm, like melting cinnamon sugar. His overall demeanor was nothing like Kai’s, or the people he normally surrounded himself with. He seemed horrendously normal.

“How did you know I’m a cop?” I asked. Kai was no longer in the car, as far as I was concerned. His presence faded into static as I heard Chanyeol’s next words:

“I watch your home. I’ve been watching for a long time, ma’am. Per Kim’s request.”

“How long?” I nearly choked on my own spit. I dared a glance at the other man; Kai’s jaw was clenching hard against his teeth. _Embarrassment?_

Chanyeol’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “One year, ma’am.”

“One year,” I repeated, laughing humorlessly, and sunk back into the seat. I pressed my tongue against my teeth. He’d been watching me since I joined the force. Since I was put on his case. He’s known since the beginning.

I was going to die.

**Author's Note:**

> like and comment if you want! stay tuned for the next one :)


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